Medea's Curse (3 page)

Wadhwa’s nodded. ‘Perhaps her medication needs review.’

‘Does she need suturing?’ Natalie addressed Kirsty.

‘No; she’s so scarred you wouldn’t be able to is my guess.’

‘Consider lamotrigine,’ Wadhwa said.

‘Last time I looked at the College guidelines there wasn’t a medication likely to
cure severe borderline personality disorder.’

Wadhwa was shaking his head, giving up. ‘So,’ he paused and Natalie knew what was
coming. ‘Along with your other patients there will be sufficient to keep you busy,
I should think?’

‘Busy enough,’ said Natalie. ‘But don’t worry, I can still squeeze Georgia in.’

‘She’s completing my assessment forms.’

‘I’ll be sure to ask if she needs them explained.’

‘She has D.I.D., Dr King.’

‘Well then, Associate Professor Wadhwa, I imagine that’s what my diagnosis will be,
don’t you?’

Natalie started her rounds, mindful of the research meeting she was meant to attend.
She was going to make time to see Georgia and had no intention of kowtowing to Wadhwa,
or Corinne for that matter.

Celeste was back to the state she had been in at admission: rocking and pleading
with her dead mother to stop yelling at her. Natalie pulled the treatment sheet from
the file.

‘Besides her brother, anything different? Could she have been putting the pills under
her tongue?’ Natalie asked Kirsty.

‘Doubt it; we watch her after the pile we found under her mattress. Saturday she
was playing table tennis with a few of the others and she seemed fine.’

‘Spending time with anyone in particular?’

‘Not really. Georgia’s the only patient that seeks out company, and she prefers the
nurses.’

‘Good morning, Georgia.’

‘Good morning, Dr King.’ Unlike the other women in the unit, Georgia was well groomed—hair
and makeup nicely done, clothes casual. She gave no indication that she was there
for anything more serious than a chat with a girlfriend over coffee; in fact, she
had a mug in her hand. In her late thirties, slim, with pale blue eyes and bobbed
blonde hair, she looked younger than her years. Natalie wondered if her appearance
had contributed to Wadhwa’s rejection of borderline as a diagnosis. She was a qualified
nurse and halfway through an online arts course. Until her arrest Georgia had been
married and middle class: a gym membership and a first-name relationship with her
hairdresser.

Natalie decided to deviate from her focus on building a
trusting relationship. Right
now she needed some hard facts and time was short. Georgia would be returning to
the main prison soon.

‘How are you finding Professor Wadhwa’s forms?’

‘Interesting. A lot of very unusual questions. They pass the time.’

Natalie made a mental note to check them out. She knew one was a personality inventory.
Georgia was too smart not to know what the forms were looking for. In any case, Wadhwa
had already shared his opinions with her lawyer.

‘What do you think of his diagnosis?’ Natalie asked.

Georgia gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘I don’t really know. It doesn’t make much sense
to me.’

‘Have you had periods where you lose time?’ Natalie had already been through many
of these questions, but one of the hallmarks of Dissociative Identity Disorder was
that memories changed according to which ‘personality’ was present. Natalie hadn’t
seen any sign of this, though. She only ever saw the same woman—sometimes agitated,
sometimes calmer. No more fragmented than her other patients with borderline personality
disorder. Wadhwa might need Georgia to have D.I.D., and so might her lawyer. It didn’t
mean she had it.

‘There are events I don’t remember very well.’

‘Tell me about those.’

‘I’ve told you before. When the ambulance and police first arrived.’

A time when memory impairment was to be expected. ‘What about sleep walking? Ever
find yourself somewhere and not recall how you got there?’

‘Would you count the time when I drank most of a bottle of vodka?’

No, Natalie wouldn’t. It had been in response to stress and was not repeated. Wadhwa
was an idiot.

‘Tell me about your mother.’

‘I was two when she went to prison. I don’t remember her.’

‘But you’ve thought a lot about her.’

‘Of course. She was the sort of mother I wasn’t going to be.’

‘What about your aunt? The one who raised you. What sort of mother was she?’

‘She prided herself on being tough.’

Natalie was aware that she was seeing an act and was conscious of how gullible psychiatrists
could be, how ready to believe what they were told. It was a reasonable starting
point—if you weren’t working with criminals. Georgia had a lot at stake. Everything
in this interaction was admissible in court.

‘So what sort of mother were you, Georgia?’

‘Caring, devoted.’ She paused. ‘Not perfect. My children were good kids, but they
got sick. Have you ever looked after children, Dr King? Being woken up every night
for a week at a time. Hourly at times. I think I did quite well under the circumstances.’

Georgia looked down. Probably not wanting to appear confrontational. She might be
using the conversation as practice for the bail hearing. She had been denied bail
the first time because she was pregnant and the unborn child was deemed to be at
risk from a woman facing three murder charges—all her own children. The fourth child,
a girl, had been born in custody.

‘What about your youngest child? Do you miss her?’

Georgia looked up, ice-blue eyes unwavering. ‘Three
of my children died tragically,
doctor. Then Miranda was taken from me. She was taken from me in the labour ward.
What do you think?’

It was a good question: one Natalie wished she had an answer to.

She brought the interview to a close and watched Georgia leave, watched her turn
in the doorway to look back and smile before closing the door softly. A half-smile
that Natalie was left to wonder about: carefully staged or secretive? Or merely friendly
and hopeful; nothing that would be pondered on, had it been given by anyone else?

The interview had been inconclusive. Natalie understood this woman no better than
she had at the start. She couldn’t tell whether she had been talking to Wadhwa’s
fragmented, disorganised soul or a cold-hearted monster.

Chapter 4

What the hell had possessed her, agreeing to have dinner with Liam O’Shea?

She read the online newspaper stories about Liam’s case to pass time before they
were due to meet. She was irritable and it didn’t help that she knew why. She didn’t
do dinner dates; particularly with married men she fancied fucking. She had caved
in instantly, and why? Because of an Irish accent and blue eyes?

Vow number one: no matter what, she was not bringing him home after their dinner
meeting. He was already too cocksure and there was far too much of a payback element
involved.

She couldn’t even console herself that the evening would be worthwhile because of
what Liam ostensibly wanted to discuss. She wanted desperately to know more about
Travis and the little blonde girl, and to help Amber, but she had to leave it alone,
or there’d be hell to pay with Declan, her supervisor.

Vow number two: she’d help him as far as she could over dinner. For Chloe and Amber’s
sake. Then no more Liam and no more involvement with Amber’s ex-husband Travis.

The internet search didn’t provide much information. No one seemed to think anything
more than bad parenting was involved in Chloe’s disappearance. The story had only
warranted brief mentions in the metropolitan papers, but it had made the front page
of the
Welbury Leader
. One picture included Travis but Natalie wouldn’t have recognised
him. Only his eyes were the same as she remembered, a slightly puppy-dog look. More
self-assured now, in a fuller face with the goatee neatly trimmed. His chin was thrust
towards the photographer, meaning business in a way that had been absent on the steps
of the Supreme Court. Tiphanie, the baby’s mother, had her head turned, avoiding
the camera. Didn’t she want her fifteen minutes of fame? Chloe looked sweet, vulnerable
and innocent. In this photo she was holding a small soft toy.

Natalie arrived at the pub early after a short walk in fine rain through the backstreets,
her neighbourhood of factories closing down for the night as she passed. Liam had
suggested a city bar, likely to be full of lawyers and stockbrokers, but she had
insisted on her local. She could free up her mind talking to the bar staff and be
ready for Liam when he arrived.

The Halfpenny was one of those Collingwood classics named for an old-school union
leader. In contrast to the tapas bars and cocktail lounges of Smith and Gertrude
streets only a block away, it was a seventies throwback with faded floral carpets,
walls crowded with photos and a
No thongs or shorts
notice over the doorway.

Vince, the owner, wasn’t there. His son Benny, with his red Mohawk reverting to frizz
in the damp air, nodded in acknowledgment. Maggie behind the bar had opened a
Corona
and put a lime wedge in place before Natalie had even made it across the room.

‘He’s waiting for you in the corner,’ said Maggie, tilting her head to her left.

Natalie took the beer. ‘Come again?’

Maggie shrugged with a smile that suggested approval. Vince wouldn’t have been as
easily persuaded, Natalie thought as she glanced where Maggie had indicated. The
lighting was dim but she could make out Liam in the corner watching her, sitting
in front of a picture of Vince with a footballer in Collingwood black and white.

‘Casing the joint?’ Natalie asked as she joined him.

‘I like to be knowing the lie of the land.’ He was drinking a Guinness. Of course.

‘Does the leprechaun impression usually work for you?’ she asked, trying not to grin
as she sat down at the table. She put her feet up on the third chair and took a slug
of the Corona, looking him over as she did. With his curling black hair, only slightly
grey at the temples, and an open-neck shirt and leather jacket, Liam could have passed
as something other than a lawyer. Almost. ‘So tell me about Travis.’

‘Over dinner.’ He took a sip from his glass, eyes never leaving her. ‘Do you live
around here?’

Natalie pushed the lime into the bottle. ‘I like Collingwood.’ Was he testing her
out or trying to show he hadn’t done a background check? ‘I thought there was a lot
to talk about. The case. Now seems a good time to start.’

Liam waved for another drink. ‘Winding down from a hard day at the office first.
Helps focus my attention.’

Yeah, right. Focus it on what?

‘So how did someone like you end up a forensic shrink?’

‘Someone like me? What does that mean?’ Natalie inwardly cursed herself. She’d let
him draw her away from the main issue.

‘Well…’ Liam lay back against the picture of Nathan Buckley and finished his drink
as Maggie brought another. ‘Not—shall we say—mainstream?’

‘That good or bad?’

‘More earrings than I can count? Motorbike that’s too big for you? I’d lay bets on
a tattoo somewhere. Right? Interesting.’

He was right. Annoyingly. Safer to answer his original question. ‘Why forensic psych?
Amber’s case, in part. Plus a run-in with a motorcycle club; their psychopathology
intrigued me.’

‘I’m guessing that all makes you too tough for relationships?’

‘I said I didn’t want to talk about your wife. Same goes for men in my life, okay?’

‘Not after specifics. Just wondering if you spit them out after one night or whether
they occasionally last a few.’

‘One’s a lot more fun.’

‘No care, no responsibility?’

Natalie grinned despite her best intentions. ‘Something like that. Now, back to Travis—’

Liam stood up. ‘Do you know what you want to eat?’

Natalie wondered if the sudden need for food was to avoid talking about Travis and
Chloe because he didn’t actually have any need for her input, or to streamline the
pathway to the after-dinner possibilities. She went with him to the window into the
kitchen and ordered her usual: steak, salad and chips.

‘Same,’ said Liam. ‘Rare.’